"We now find ourselves in the beautiful position of having developed a machine so powerful that we can just stand back and pile up our profits."...
Melvin Schwartz, in Principles of Electrodynamics

I am one of the many fortunate astronomers who have had the privilege of
helping to maintain the 1-m telescope and its instrumentation at the University
of Virginia Fan
Mountain Observatory. My favorite research interest is precision optical
polarimetry of early emission line stars: massive hot stars that spin so
rapidly they are practically flying apart, making their outer atmospheres
unstable in very mysterious and unpredictable ways.
For fun I enjoy playing the saxophone with a wacky assortment of
rhythm 'n blues musicians around Charlottesville and
San Antonio.